High Kickish
General Information Standard High Kickish (natively Qaisik /!ˀʌisikʰ/) is a language spoken by the Cittus (Sītul ya /siːtʰɯl jʌ/), insect-looking sapients from the planet Ess (Gçēr /ᶢǂeːr/) and one of the founding species of the Allied Intelligences, from the country Kickland and associated states (Qaisixhuāl /!ˀʌisiǁʰɯʌːl/), particularly in the above-ground communities. SHK is the standard variety, taught in schools. Phonology Pulmonic consonants # /l/ is devoiced before a voiceless consonant or at the end of an utterance. # /s/ and /ts/ are retracted to ʃ and tʃ before /j/. Clicks Due to the Cittus not possessing a uvula, all clicks are pronounced with the back articulation in the pharynx. # Sub-apical flapped alveolar. Vowels * Diphthongs: falling /ʌɪ/, /ɛɪ/, /ɯɪ/, rising /ɯʌ/, /ɯʌː/ * Triphthong: /ɯʌɪ/ Phonotactics ©V(F) * C can be any consonant. * Vowels cannot be consecutive. * V can be any short or long vowel, or any diphthong or triphthong. * Word-finally F can be any stop, sibilant, or alveolar approximant. * Word-initial clusters are limited to: /tɹ/, /tʰɹ/, /kɹ/, /kʰɹ/, /tsɹ/, /sɹ/, /lɹ/, /tj/, /tʰj/, /kj/, /kʰj/, /tsj/, and /sj/. * Word-medial clusters are limited to: /ɹt/, /lt/, /ɹtʰ/, /ltʰ/, /ɹk/, /lk/, /ɹkʰ/, /lkʰ/, /ɹts/, /lts/, /kʰs/, /ɹs/, /ls/, /tɹ/, /tʰɹ/, /kɹ/, /kʰɹ/, /tsɹ/, /sɹ/, /lɹ/, /ɹl/, /tj/, /tʰj/, /kj/, /kʰj/, /tsj/, and /sj/. * Coda /ʔ/ and /ɹ/ don't occur after falling diphthongs. Stress To determine stress placement in High Kickish, one needs to learn about syllabic weight. A syllable containing a short monophthong and no syllable-final consonants is considered to be light (L), whereas a syllable containing any long vowel, diphthong, triphthong, or syllable-final consonant is considered to be heavy (H). Stressed vowels are of a high pitch on short monophthongs or a high-falling pitch on long monophthongs, diphthongs, and triphthongs. ex. near-minimal pair xhi'e ˈǁʰɪ́ʔɛ "spit" vs xī'e ˈǁˀîːʔɛ "two-headed worm". Patterns: * -HH, -LHL, penultimate is stressed. ex. Sī'tul "Cittus" * -HLL, -HHL, antepenultimate is stressed. ex. '''gqā'dare'' "antenna" * -LH, ultimate is stressed. ex. ceħe'tā "speaking" * -LLL, penultimate is stressed. ex. ''''a'le'' "you (sg. fem.)" Orthography Native writing system Basics The native writing system of Kickish is an alphabet. Diacritics There are two diacritics in the alphabet. *the diacritic marked Vi: the falling diphthong diacritic. It is placed below the consonant following the vowel to be modified. *the diacritic marked VV: the vowel lengthener. It is placed below the vowel it modifies. Punctuation The punctuation marks in the grid are a full stop, hyphen, and colon/semicolon. There are no equivalents of a quotation mark, exclamation point, question mark, or comma. Writing direction The Kickish alphabet is written in the same direction as the Latin alphabet, that is: horizontal lines from left to right, starting at the top. Collation The Kickish alphabet has some semblance of order. Vowels are first, then pulmonic consonants, then clicks. i, e, a, u, ', g, r, t, ħ, d, l, y, ye, ya, k, h, s, c, j, q, qh, gq, x, xh, gx, ç, çh, gç Romanization Parts of speech * Nouns: people, objects, and ideas, ex. ārga "body" * Articles: signifies definiteness, ex. ye "the (fem)" * Pronouns: stands in for repeated or known nouns, ex. disus "you two (fem)" * Verbs: actions, ex. gu "give" * Auxiliary verbs: verbs which add grammatical information, ex. uaic "should" * Adverbial prefixes: prefixed equivalents of adjectives and adverbs, ex. xhi-'' "loudly" * Postpositions: relations between nouns and other words, ex. ''a "of" * Polar particles: truth value indicators and interjections, ex. sīk "no" * Conjunctions: conjoins various words in various ways, ex. ut "and" Nouns Gender and Number Genders are three: #Feminine: used for female Cittus and some inanimate objects. Shows singular, dual, and plural number. #Masculine: used for male Cittus and some inanimate objects. Shows singular and plural number. #Juvenile: used for juvenile Cittus who have not yet differentiated into male and female, and some inanimate objects. Shows singular and plural number. Here is the regular declension, though some nouns break this pattern. Pronouns Pronouns are a very recently closed subclass of nouns, inflecting for all of the same categories as nouns and even matching some nouns in form (e. g. the word for little one, srā is the ordinary 3s.juv pronoun). They are however also marked suppletively for three levels of deference. Article There is no indefinite article. The definite article inflects for gender and is placed after a noun. The article is not used with proper nouns. *The masculine definite article y'' attaches to the noun as a /j/, and in speech lengthens the typical masculine ending ''-i. If the y'' is bordered by consonants on both sides for any reason, it merges with the feminine article, ''ye. ex. 'ergi y "the twin", 'ergil ye gqi "with the twins" *The definite article contracts to y-'' before a postposition beginning in a vowel. ex. ''tatāri y-ū "from the soul" Verbs Verbs have three conjugation classes and are a closed class of about 120. They conjugate according to four tenses (present, future, simple past, discontinuous past), two evidentialities (direct, indirect), two voices (active, passive), and deference to the listener(s). Conjugation classes Verbs may be one of three conjugation classes: #''u'' verbs: the largest class. #''ħ'' verbs: the verb stems can only end in a vowel. #''i'' verbs: the smallest class with the most irregular verbs. Nonfinite forms The citation form of verbs is the passive participle or gerund, which are identical (''-ūd'', ''-ħīd'', ''-īd''). There is also a supine used with auxiliary verbs and to mean "in order to verb" (''-utā'', ''-ħetā'', ''-etā''), and an active participle (''-uis'', ''-ħeis'', ''-ais''). Finite forms Affix ordering Deference The deferential suffix is an important part of the honorific system of Kickish. It expresses respectful submission to the judgement or will of the listener(s), and is used in each of the registers of formality. Depending on region in Qaisixhuāl, the deferential suffix could be ''-eir'', ''-ēr'', or ''-ēy'', among others. When traveling Qaisixhuāl, it is imperative that one uses the correct suffix for the region. The suffixes also differ depending on the relative age/genders of the speaker and listener. Some verbs also have suppletive formal forms. Passive The passive construction consists of taking the citation form of a verb and adding the universal passive endings (shown below). * ex. Rūle qharīdas. "I feel like we are being watched." Examples Regular verbs Gūd ˈkɯːt: to give, gutā, guis Ceħīd tsɛˈħiːt: to speak, ceħetā, ceħeis Hēlīd ˈhe̞ːliːt: to arm, bring weapons, hēletā, hēlais Irregular verbs Ī'' ˈiː: be. 'To be' has no non-finite forms. If any are needed, its suppletive formal form, ''Īħīd, is used. Ūd ˈɯːt: to do, utā, uis Syasīd ʃjʌˈsiːt: to go, syasetā, syasais Uaicīd ˈɯʌɪtsiːt: should come, give, take Adverbial prefixes Adjectives and adverbs do not exist as separate words in Kickish. Instead, they can be translated as nouns, nominal phrases, or as a closed but rather large set of Adverbial prefixes. Each adverbial prefix has two forms: one for words beginning in consonants and one for words beginning in vowels. ex. tel(i)- "first", isu(')- "last", raj(a)- "proper" Postpositions Polar particles Polarity is the truth value of a statement. In Kickish it is represented with the four polar particles. If modifying a part of speech they are always placed before and separated with a hyphen. If the following word begins in a vowel, then it will gain an unwritten initial glottal stop (except if following sik). They can also function as a standalone utterance. Syntax Case is not marked, so word order is relatively strict. SVO is the norm. Noun phrase *ex. Gçēr ū Sītul ya *Cittus.V-fem.sg ABL Cittus-pl DEF-juv *the Cittus of Cittus-V Verb phrase *ex. ceħeis xhilalūdi *speak-act.part loud-birth-pass-dir.cont.pst *... was born speaking loudly Formality There are three primary registers of speech. #formal: used in professional situations. #ordinary: the unmarked register, safe to use within the family. #slang: used to signify familiarity to the listener, whether that be respect as friends or as sarcastic rudeness. Vocabulary Because of differences in anatomy and physiology, many categories of words are very different from their Earthly counterparts. Conjunctions and (ut), or (yu) Numbers The Cittus typically crawl on all six limbs, but they do use their first two pairs of limbs for manipulation. On each foot they have three clawed fingers, and the first pair each have a clawed thumb. Their counting base is twelve, achieved by counting the fingers of their manipulative limbs, not counting the thumbs. Numerals are masculine gender when used as nouns, and take the place of the definite article when applied to nouns. Some numbers change form when counting and the numbers 2, 3, and 4 have different forms for different genders. * Large numbers are the reverse of a typical English number, ex. 2812/3210 jūr kuās. * The gross (122) position is separated from any number 12 and below with ut "and", ex. te' ut cyār. * Ordinal numbers are expressed with a suffixed ''-rar''. First through fourth are irregular: 'alta, sugrar, selrar, and sadrar. Anatomy * body: j ārga * head: f dare * gnathal plates: m krehil * teeth: j 'īcal * eyes: f krīcus * antenna: f gqādarus * neck: m ja'uai * breathing tubes: j ħarsal * dermal armor: f xadeksel * armor ridges: f lartūl * underside: f 'artēħe * back: f ħīre * appendage: f çheg * arm/first appendage: f çhegetē * middle appendage: f çhegekū * leg/last appendage: f çhegelē * wrist/ankle: m drēyui * finger/toe/claw: j tyusa * thumb: j gairiltais a tyusa Family members * jādre/i: mother/father * jaje/i: mom/dad * jādrajādre/i: grandmother/grandfather * hēhe/i/a: older sister/brother/juvenile sibling * cēce/i/a: younger sister/brother/juvenile sibling * 'erge/i/a: twin * seigre/i/a: older female/male/juvenile cousin * daite/i/a: younger female/male/juvenile cousin * tyurle/i: wife/husband * 'alrikse/i: mother/father-in-law * gqaile/i: older sister/brother-in-law * çhirle/i/a: younger sister/brother/juvenile sibling-in-law * 'age/i/a: daughter/son/juvenile child * 'aga'age/i/a: granddaughter/grandson/juvenile grandchild Colors Introduction The Cittus live around a star which spits out more light in the ultraviolet than our own. They have adapted to see a wider range of color than us, granting them not three dimensional color like us Humans, but four dimensional color. One of the odd consequences of this is that the Cittus can tell the difference between magenta (red+blue), violet (blue+UV), and purple (red+blue+UV) . Notation: colors are notated as a combination of 1s and 0s representing the presence or absence of a primary color in the order Red-Yellow-Blue-Ultraviolet. For example, 1010 is the combination of red and blue (magenta) and 0101 is the combination of yellow and ultraviolet (ultyellow). All color words are nouns. Simple colors "Simple" colors are those formed by pure primary color combinations. Complex colors "Complex" colors are those that cannot be described in ones and zeros. Some complex colors have dedicated names, while most are combinations of words. Any simple color can be described as teħ(i)-'' "light" or ''rēd(i)- ''"dark", and combinations of colors can be described as more one color than others by adding that specific color before the general color, for example, ''cīldi "orange" with more 'akser "red" than yellow would be 'aksercīldi "red-orange". Directions *Also considered cardinal directions are up (ħīri) and down ('artēħi). Time Divisions of time * The year (28 riksel, ~413 earth d): qālehe ye * The month (19 or 20 sejail): rikse ye * The day (12 'altal, ~18 hrs): sejai y (lit. "the sun") * The hour (60 sugrarel): 'alta ya (lit. "the first of the day) * The minute (60 selrarel): sugrar ye (lit. "the second of the day) * The second (~1.5 s): selrar ye (lit. "the third of the day) Calendar The Kickish solar calendar has 28 months (riksel) of either 19 or 20 days each. The fifth month alternates between 19 and 20 days every other year. A day of Cittus-V lasts merely a little less than 18 hours. The calendar has no weeks. Instead, the first, fifth, and eleventh days of the month are named (Srūse, Krūse, and Lrūse), and the other days count down to the next named day. Days are named according to the following formula: Month a'' Named day ''sā number. For example, the first three days of the year are: Telsēhag a Srūse, Telsēhag a Krūse sā lei, and Telsēhag a Krūse sā kui. Stellar system Example text Lraigesel ye srāl a 'idigqal ut līkerdel e līkerde ut 'akya gqi lalūdas. Srāl gūdas qaicisūd a ħūsel ut hicel ye çhai te' ū hēhel ji rajakasuis uaicas. intelligent-f.pl DEF-f dignity-juv.pl and freedom-f.pl INE freedom-f.sg and equality-juv.sg COM birth-PASS-NDIR.PRES 3p.juv GEN / 3p.juv give-PASS-NDIR.PRES smart-think-GER GEN ability-f.pl and other-f.pl DEF-f BENE one ABL older.sibling-f.pl FORM proper-act-ACT.PART should-NDIR.PRES / "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) Literal translation: "The intelligent ones were born with freedom and equality in their dignities and freedoms. They were given of reasoning's abilities and should be acting properly as older sisters from one for the others." Category:Alien languages